New Jam tracks (9/5/18)

So I happened to be off work last week so my drummer and I went out and played an open jam, our only real performance space other than practicing at the studio with occasional friends spectating, sometimes even performing too. 

We start the jam off with an instrumental tune, Buckethead's Soothsayer. Then we play Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath, and end the mini-gig with my original death metal tune called Spirits of the Dead. 

Enjoy! 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/soothsayer918
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-95
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-95


Good news is that although my singing and death metal screams aren't "good" they are at least decent enough to pass, and I have improved a lot in my general singing and screams. Back to the shed for practice! 

Open Mic Tracks from 5/16

Hello, here are my recordings from last week's open mic. We played Electric Funeral and Poachers as a guitar, drums duo with myself on vocals. 

I think we did an excellent job on the Sabbath tune considering we didn't have a bass player. It sounds pretty bad ass. Although its not perfect metric (timing)-wise I still think its pretty cool. I can do metal too, haha. Check out the tune here https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-guitar-drum-duo

And the other tune is Poachers, a tune written by new music composer Frank Abbinanti. Here I play it with my friend Martin on drums. I was following the score and he improvised music based on what I was playing. Upon hearing it after I think we could use more practice with this one. However, Martin's drumming wasn't bad. He does pretty well when we improvise. I also like the yelling from the audience. Makes it feel like a rock concert! Check it out here https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/poachers-martin-on-drums

Lastly, I have something different, a jazz/blues in c featuring Jim Xaiver on drums, Mike Mitchell on distorted electric guitar, Ken on tambourine, Art on bass, and myself on clean guitar. Check that out here https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/jazzblues-in-c
I like this one a lot because its jazz, which I love!  

Enjoy! 

Poachers Live With Percussion

Hello everybody! Just wanted to share this new track from last week's open mic at Petie's Place. 

https://youtu.be/D-rHftwnEW8 

This is Poachers live, a piece written for me by new music composer Frank Abbinanti. It's quite avant-garde, it has its moments of melody and makes use of what I'd call "noise chords", real noisy chords. 

We played this piece last week and at the time it was quite nerve-wracking because I'd never played the piece live in front of anyone other than just by dad when I was practicing it. However, the nervousness comes out in a good way. I hit a few bum notes in the beginning but nothing that sets the piece off balance. 

Jim's drumming was quite remarkable. His fills, while keeping time in between is quite good. He played it like a real jazz drummer. My favorite band I've seen him perform with is a jazz-rock fusion guitar trio. He's the best musician I get to play with at these open mics, and its great making music with the guy. 

I do think the piece would've been cooler if that guy didn't yell "Yeah!" at the end but even some of the best classical performances are cluttered with coughing. 

Anyways, enjoy the tune!

Personel
Orlando Figueroa Guitar
Jim X Drums
Frank Abbinanti Composer

Open Jam Tunes

Hey, what's going on everybody? Here are two tunes from last week's open jam. First we have Hey Joe, a Hendrix cover.

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe 

I did my best to cover the vocals, I'm still working a lot on my singing. When it comes to the solo I do my best Hendrix-esque guitar licks. I think I do a pretty job of keeping it in that 60s rock guitar vein. 

Surprisingly the solid state Line 6 amp used for the jams sounded pretty great here. I really like this drummer on this one. He's a guy that comes occasionally to the jams. Its funny, he wanted to do Manic Depression but when I could barely play the riff (I forgot it) we had to stop and play Sunshine of Your Love instead (laughs). 

However, I did learn Manic Depression and I'll be ready to play it the next time he's there. 

Anyways, I think that this is my best cover of Hey Joe I've ever done live, so there's that. 

And then for the next tune we have Sunshine of Your Love by the Cream, a song I've been playing at the jam for a while now. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-most-recent-version

Hearing this back now I think I've done a lot better with my vocals. Still needs work (better tone) if I want to be more professional but its not bad as of right now, at least to my ears. The Hendrixian guitar licks are plentiful and are sounding good as usual. One thing I need to work on is singing louder and with more oomph, ya know. Add some more power and energy into it. 

With this solo here I think it sounded pretty good. Not too much wankery (shredding a la guitar pyrotechnics from the 80s), focusing on hitting the good sounding notes, bending the strings, beginning, middle, end, and then back to the vocals. I like it. 

Enjoy the music! 

Electric Funeral, Music Politics

Here's our rendition of Electric Funeral with my buddy Martin on drums, and Thelma on groans :D https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/electric-funeral
I did a bit of vocals but not the full song. Enjoy!

I've been pretty busy practicing a lot of music, working on jazz guitar, jazz standards, as well as piano. I'm mostly just improvising on piano but I'm getting much better pretty quickly and I've only been playing since October.

The band situation is either getting worse or getting better depending on how you look at it. The drummer has improved a lot and I look forward to continue working with him for a long time. However, the singer might be leaving to join another band, depending on if he gets accepted after the audition process.

In the meantime we're still practicing together with the current singer. However, Martin (drummer) has found a new guitarist (named Stan) that also plays guitar and sings. I sing and play guitar too so if Alex (current singer) ends up leaving we have a good back up plan for the band.

I'm teaching my friend rudimentary rock bass and I'm hoping he can get good fast enough to play with us (our riffs aren't that difficult, just fast mostly).

As if that wasn't enough our current bass player can't play the songs the same way, he just improvises and changes it every time so we're going to have to let him go.

As you can see I'm dealing with a lot of politics! Me and the drummer are the unofficial leaders but man am I glad that he found another guitarist that can do vocals, that will make things a lot easier if Alex ends up ditching us.

Its a lot of pressure and I'm trying to stay positive about the whole metal band thing. One could take a look at my band and just say those guys are just fucking around.

As if that wasn't enough I'm also looking and talking to jazz musicians to play in a jazz setting. Hopefully I can do that soon because my heart is way more into jazz than metal, even if I do have a 7-string Jackson as my current main guitar. 

I'm going to continue to work hard and improve my chops, increase my repertoire and keep playing live at the open jam at Petie's Place, the bar on Reseda. I've got to keep pushing myself. 

More music

Here's some more music from the open jams. Its pretty crazy I have something like 24 weeks of tunes I've played at this open jam at Petie's Place, this low-key bar in Tarzana on Reseda and Oxnard. If you live in the Valley you should come check it out sometime. Anyways, here I played with the house band, we did Sunshine of Your Love (a favorite of mines) and John Coltrane's Mr. PC, a jazz standard I learned from the Real Book. Enjoy the music! Leave a comment, let me know what you think. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/mr-pc-coltrane 

Jam notes I

I ended up playing with this older guitar playing friend that plays a Steve Vai Jem guitar while I used my Jackson 7-string. These are pretty much just jams we did, no songs or anything. However, this cool girl named Melinda helped out on vocals on the first jam. Lotta soul!

I think it ended up sounding pretty darn good. I distinctly remember the drummer, my good friend Jim X (from the jazz fusion band Oui3, whom I just saw at the Baked Potato on Sunday) saying that its not really a good idea to have two guitarists soloing at the same time. There are moments where it worked really well. I guess it just depends on how you do it. 

Interesting to note that I thought I was super loud, much louder than the other guitar but after listening back its the other guitar that louder. 

I've been practicing a lot of drop2 jazz chord voicings and learning a lot of rootless inversions as well. I brought my friends' bass to the shop for repairs, I gotta go back and pay them $40 for a a $100 bass, expensive for sure. Haven't had band practice for a while but hopefully we'll practice tomorrow or Friday.  

Last week's jam tracks V

Here's the live tracks from last week's open jam we played. Here we started the show off with Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Then we segued into Steve Vai's Bad Horsie and ended everything with my original black metal style tune called Spirits of the Dead. We've been playing these songs a lot at the bar and there's a couple different variations of these tunes on my soundcloud page. However, this stands apart from all those because I think the vocals were especially well done on this night. You'll see what I mean when you hear it. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/paranoid-best-vocals
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie-most-recent-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-best-vocals

In addition, good news everyone! So my two man band (this music is me, my friends, and house band musicians at the bar) but now we've decided to work with this metal vocalist named Alex. Its going to be a while before we have some good arrangements and until I get used to his screaming vocals (haha) but we had a practice yesterday and it went really well. I liked the whole two man White Stripes/Black Keys thing but its better off if I only sing the songs I write, and mostly focus on the guitar chords. Really excited to be working in a 'real' band now and hopefully soon we'll get some songs arranged, and be able to play our first gig really soon.

Last Week's Jam Tracks IV

Here's the tracks from last week's jam tracks from the local pub. 

The first track we played was Sunshine of Your Love (a staple of ours-me and martin my drummer friend), but this time it was performed with Jim, the house drummer at the open jam and an unknown bassist to me. The bass player is very good, as is Jim, which makes the guitar playing and singing very easy to do. I'm pretty proud of the solo I did here on Sunshine, a mix of straight up blues rock Hendrix-esque licks with a bit of shred. I like how when we ended the song I played the riff to Day Tripper retardando haha. That cowbell though! 

The next tune we played was Steve Vai's Bad Horsie. I still haven't gotten the hang of playing this so off the cuff and never practicing it with the musicians I play it with but I tried it again. Here it sounded pretty good with Jim's drumming and Bassist X's bass sound. I went for a super fast shred solo here. I really dig that melody and that metal riff. Steve Vai is a pretty big influence.

This week my drummer friend Martin couldn't make it so I played with the ace drummer Jim and this mysterious Bassist X dude with long hair and glasses, it turned out pretty well. My guitar sounded really great here, it sounds really in tune!  

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-cool-bass-and-drums
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/bad-horsie

Last Week's Jam Tracks III

Here are the live tracks from last week's open jam at Petie's Place, this bar I frequent a lot.

The first tune we played was Black Sabbath's Paranoid, pretty easy song right? Well, I did kind of mess up the song last week because I forgot to come in w/ some verses and instead just went into a guitar solo, then found my place back within the song. That's how you cover up a mistake folks, go into impromptu guitar solo mode! I'm still working on bringing more emotion into the singing.

Next, we played Sunshine of Your Love by the Cream. This has been like our swansong so to speak. Sometimes hearing my voice makes me cringe hard but when I hear the guitar playing I think again (lols). My vocals are definitely getting better but its still hard to get past that speaking voice to singing voice transition. Ken, the percussionist playing tambourine (and records everything for me, thank you) is really on point with his rhythm here. With him and my friend Martin on drums its like playing with two drummers. Martin takes care of fills and colour and Ken takes care of timing with precision.

The last tune we played was an improvised version of Steve Vai's Bad Horsie. I have a habit of doing impromptu versions of guitar instrumentals by shredders (check out this version of Buckethead's Soothsayer here). The melody from Bad Horsie is pretty strong here, a bluesy funky sort of melody that runs into some metal riffing. The way we did it this time I stopped playing and motioned Martin to do a drum solo. As you can hear it sounded pretty damn good. My friend Martin is really coming into his own as a rock and roll drummer. At the end I did some tapping and held a note for what seemed like eons while Martin played some crazy rolls. That's pretty cool.

Here are all the tracks, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/paranoid-forget-the-verse-ha
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-latest-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/steve-vai-bad-horsie-impromtu-jam-version

Last Week's Jam Tracks II

Here's last week's jam tracks from Peties Places' open jam that I go to every week. Peties is this really cool bar that I've been jamming at for a while, one drink minimum, a pool table, and free popcorn, wow! Its a cool place and this is where I've met the drummer I'm working with right now, my friend Martin.

The first song we started off the set with (three song set) was Black Sabbath's Paranoid. This one we started off like a bat out of hell and it sounded great. I was pretty happy with the performance as it was the first time we've ever played the song live. I think I did a great job on the solo sounding like Tony Iommi, that pentatonic box shape man! 

Next, we played Smoke on the Water, which we've done in the past but not nearly as well as this rendition. My vocals were a little spotty in certain sections but overall I would say I pulled it off. I really enjoy the hand percussion on this piece, I think I notice Ken's sound a lot more in this particular recording. I liked what I was doing with the vocals on the chorus, giving it that more British pronunciation. This song is a long time coming with Martin, it took him a while to get the drumming down, he does a good job. The improvised guitar solo has some sections where it sounds like things Blackmore would play, but is also unique.

Lastly, we ended with Spirits of the Dead, which has been a 'cult classic hit' for our 'band' (just me and Martin). I've been enjoying posting many versions of the same song because I really like the song a lot. I wrote and recorded it on the first day of October and I was heavily inspired by black metal when I was recording it. Think about coarse singing into a microphone on the first morning of October, bad ass.

You can find the tracks below.
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-most-recent-version
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/smoke-on-the-water
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/paranoid

Check out my Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17
And my other Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763

Long live rock and roll.

Last open jam set of 2017

Here's the last open jam set I played of 2017 at Petie's Place, on Reseda and Oxnard Street. I'm pretty happy with the recordings, mostly because my vocals are a lot better than they've ever been. I've really come a long way with my singing starting last year. I'm really glad I started singing rock and roll. It's a lot smarter and easier, as I don't have to rely on other people to do vocals.

We started off with Sunshine of Your Love with this dude named Allan (a typical blues rocker long hair w/ a Strat). He did a great job jamming with me for the first time ever, I especially liked his leads on Spirits of the Dead, the second song we played. I really liked my solo on Sunshine, I was going for my Hendrix style there.

On Spirits of the Dead Allen's leads really give the piece a new dynamic melody. And then there's me doing black metal style coarse/scream style vocals. Pretty funny! A lot of people say to me that they don't expect that when they see me play. It's cool to have one death metal song, and this is my only one as of now. We played the song a lot faster than we usually do but again Allen's leads really pave the way for a great tune, especially when I repeat the chugging bridge riff and he takes some bluesy leads over it. Spirits of the Dead!

And the last tune we have for you is Blues Improvisation no.1. This tune was just a blues Allen and I called in A. I stuck to dominant and ninth chords in the key of A. I might have switched it to minor ninths near the ending too. Added a little bit of the power chord blues shuffle in there too for contrast. I think my blues solo really hits the heart strong. When I do a blues solo I always try to go for the Hendrixy emotion.

Allen's blues solo on this tune was quite something, as you can hear. He hits a lot of the common cliches but it always sounds good. He's a great player and I'm glad to have jammed with him on the last open jam of 2017. I'm going to do even better to sing better and become a better performer in 2018!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-2
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-2
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/blues-improvisation-no1

Open Jam Tracks

Here's the tracks from last week's open jam at the local pub. I played two songs, Spirits of the Dead and Hey Joe. Spirits of the Dead is an original doomy death metalish sort of thing that I wrote on the first of October. This version here the vocals are a lot more cookie monster than I would've liked. I think I'll work on making the vocals coarse but not so 'cookie monster'. The cool thing is that this is probably the first time the song was performed as it was intended-screaming vocals and all. Not bad. I even threw down a solo in the song when there wasn't meant to be one. My drummer friend Martin's playing was splendid.

The other tune is Hey Joe, a Jimi Hendrix cover. On this one it was pretty rough. My guitar is sorely out of tune and we fucked up royally on the intro. But hey reader we made it through it. As you can hear even my guitar part goes off you can hear Martin is holding the beat steady on the drums. He has really improved his playing a lot. The longer the song goes the better it sounds, me thinks. The solo was well done by yours truly. Martin's fills at the end of the song are great.

Enjoy the tunes!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-1
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe

Live Tracks from 9/27

Here's the live tracks from last week's open jam. This was the first time I brought my 7-string Jackson to the jam night. I think it sounds pretty astounding. On Smoke on the Water I got a much heavier (more metal) guitar tone. The instrumental improv with Thelma was really sick as well. And the jazz instrumental was a jam with many roads traveled (including a blues) haha. Enjoy the heaviness of 7-string guitar. I notice even though its a much heavier sound it can also get really good trebly tones as well. Also its funny you can hear me doing back up vocals on the chorus of Smoke on the Water. My voice really stands out there haha. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/jazz-on-a-7-string
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/smoke-on-the-water-metal-version
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/thelma-proto-metal-jam

Friday 9/22 open jam recordings

So these are from the 9/22 jam session last week. I thought everything went fairly well sound-wise and guitar-playing wise. Some tracks here are actually from a few weeks earlier.. I really like the Too Rock and Roll for You tune, that woman had a good voice for that kinda thing. Check it out, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/blues-jam-supreme
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/sunshine-of-your-love-2
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/cannon-too-rock-roll-for-you
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/move-over
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/smoke-on-the-water-2

Open jam recording, fusion set

So I've been going to the open jams and I got some more recordings. These turned out quite nicely. I ended up playing with a young drummer, a blues bass player, and the percussionist that shows up every week. I called out two chord vamps for both of the jams and it ended up being kind of a heavy jazz fusion sort of set. I thought my guitar tone was trying to do too much at times but it ended up sounding really progressive and fusion-y. I really liked that I was the only guitarist on the set, it hasn't been that way since like when I first started going. Great stuff. You can hear both of the tracks here. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/two-chord-vamp-amin7-d7 

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/two-chord-vamp-fmaj7-cmin7

Enjoy! 

8/31 jam from Peties

So I got my last jam from Petie's Place recorded. This was more of a two guitar blues, jazz, and rock kind of night. The first tune we played was Stormy Monday but I totally improvised everything I played and went for a more round hollow body jazz sound, really jazzing up the changes. I think I did a really great job with the blues leads in this one. Then we did a simple rock riff instrumental that I created that's based off of Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin. Its a bit faster and has more metal style riffing in it than say pure Led Zep. Then for the last piece we played Hey Joe. I actually ended up doing the solo like how it actually goes in the recording, which was pretty cool because I usually prefer to improvise most of my solos. The singer on Stormy Monday and Hey Joe is this guy named Shane that I've been working with since these jams. Tonight we played Smoke on the Water together. He's a cool guy. Anyways, enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/stormy-monday-shane-vocals
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/rock-riff
https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763/hey-joe-shane-vocals

Holding out for a 7-string

 

Hey, how's it going? I haven't been writing too much lately because the new job position (cheese department clerk) has got me super tired after my shifts. I've been able to keep up with my guitar playing, even attending this week's open jam night at Peties Place, and I'm going to jam with a bass player and another guitarist tomorrow afternoon at my place before work. Wowzah! I haven't been able to keep up with my gaming too much, which does make me a little sad. I was playing Heroes of the Storm today and I was definitely noticing that my playing was much worse than it usually is-because I haven't been playing too often. *Sigh*, disappointment intensifies. 

I did manage to play like two games of Heroes and two matches of World of Warcraft battlegrounds. It was pretty fun. I wish I played more but I had to let my brother sleep, he probably has an early shift tomorrow. I hope my job doesn't stop me from doing everything I usually do. I don't want to stop gaming as much just because of work. At the same time though I don't want to lose out on precious guitar practice and jamming time because of it either. It all comes down to using my time wisely and to the best of my abilities. Being tired sure makes it hard though!

Right now I'm holding out for a 7-string guitar. My birthday is coming up on September 25 so I'm hoping to get the guitar on the same week as my bday. I've been shopping around online and there's some pretty cheap models. I don't want to go too cheap. I was thinking about spending about $200-$250 at max. I don't need a super nice guitar, I just want a cool looking 7-string to practice new jazz chord voicings and bring to jam sessions.

My guitar playing has really improved. I can't wait until after Labor Day so the tambourine/hand percussionist can email me the tracks of my jam from this week. It was really fucking good. I think its the best jam I've ever done there. It was a three song set and we played a jazzed up version of Stormy Monday, a rock and roll jam based on the rock and roll riff by Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe. It turned out to be great even though the other guitarist wasn't so hot on any of it. However, the drummer was a total rock and roller and he played great, especially on the rock and roll jam and Hey Joe. It was pretty sweet. It was a really busy jam night, and I didn't get to play until about 12:30 am but hey that's alright. I rocked the fucking house. Now that I know that most people there can't play jazz really I'm going to stick to more straight up rock and roll there. Maybe even start singing some classic rock tunes. I was thinking stuff like Knocking on Heaven's Door, Fire, and Hare Krishna. Simple tunes that have the same chords over and over so its easy for me to sing and solo over. Great idea, amiright?

Back to the 7-string guitar. The brands I'm looking at the most right now is Jackson and Schecter. I can get a great Jackson for $200 but the Schecters run for about $250. Both are within my budget but I'm thinking about going with the Schecter just because I already own a Jackson. However, brand loyalty is totally something I'm capable of haha. I love Jackson, they're a great company and I've played the $200 model loads of times and it was great every time. So we will see.

More articles to come in the next couple days and weeks. I want to get back into writing about games but just haven't gotten around to it. I'm definitely going to do an article about Kel'Thuzad from Heroes of the Storm. He seems bad ass and he hasn't even been released yet on the live servers, he's only on the ptr (public test servers).

Watch this space

New Soundcloud tracks

Hey, good news everyone! I made friends with the percussionist at the open jam I go to at Peties Place on Reseda and turns out he records everything. So I asked him to send me all the tracks I've played on thus far at the open jam nights and I've decided to post them on my Soundcloud page. The quality is pretty good, I kinda wonder what he uses to record. Probably some small little device. It actually sounds rather good, you can hear the drums, bass, and guitars really well.

I've been super quiet when it comes to recording but all of a sudden new life has been breathed into Professor Plasma (nickname for my solo projekt). I'm going to keep going to the open jams and ask him to send me more stuff so I can keep posting more live jams. I like my sound and style when I'm playing with other musicians more so than composing myself. This is like the poor man's way of recording and sharing music-through the power of your friends! Haha, thanks for checking this post out and remember to check out all my new tracks at https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763.